The Sun Will Shine
by LaughableBlackStorm
Summary: The summer after Sirius's death, stuck inside Grimmauld Place, Harry finally snaps. Now he must learn that even when he has no strength in himself, there are always friends close by to lend a hand.


**Warnings:** Suicidal thoughts and tendencies; if this is a sensitive subject for you, please read with discretion.

**Author's Notes:** This has been rewritten as of May 1, 2012. The ending is entirely new, while the rest was reworded in several parts.

* * *

Harry Potter walked silently down the street, his head bent, a light drizzle falling from the sky. His sweater had a hood, but he refused to wear it; the cold droplets of rain were calming him. He had been very on edge lately, and for good reason. With his godfather gone, he felt hopeless; the small bit of family support he'd gotten used to was now suddenly gone, and he found himself unwilling to return to a life without it. He looked up; the streetlights gleamed in the weather, they glowed in the haze the falling water was creating. Harry kicked a stone down the sidewalk, wanting to concentrate on something other than his current thoughts. Maybe if he did something drastic he would think about something else for a while.

He glanced up at the sky, for the first time noticing how dark it was. He wondered how long he had been out there – he had left Grimmauld Place at around six o'clock. Since it was still light out until late nowadays, Harry had figured he would have enough time to take a stroll for an hour or two…he realized he hadn't even been keeping track of the time. Checking his watch, he saw it was ten o'clock. Amazed at how nobody had come looking for him yet, he turned around and started his way back.

While walking, Harry found his mind returning to the disturbing memories from the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts, so he looked back up at the darkened sky. There were thousands of stars twinkling above him, almost winking at him – mocking his sadness. It seemed like it had been an eternity since he'd known the wonderful feeling of happiness.

When Harry was about a quarter of the way back to Grimmauld Place, the rain started to fall harder, clinking off the roofs of the houses. His vision became blurred from the water running down his glasses, but he didn't attempt to wipe them clean. It made him concentrate on where he stepped, cleared his mind of his earlier thoughts. A feeble attempt to forget the images, yes, but it was worth it. The heavy weight of grief lifted momentarily off his shoulders.

Suddenly he tripped and fell to his hands and knees. Exhaustion immediately enveloped his body, and he made no attempt to stand back up. Instead, he sat on the sidewalk and curled his knees to his chest. The air around him was cold for a summer night, so he wrapped his arms around his knees to stay warm. He closed his eyes to rest for a minute; instantly scenes from the Department of Mysteries flashed before his eyes. For a moment it felt like he was in a trance, reliving the latest dark experience in his life, but after a minute he managed to snap his head up and opened his eyes hastily to get rid of the visions.

A silent tear slipped from his left eye and traced a path down his cheek. He feebly attempted to keep more from falling, but another tear soon followed. A sob escaped his lips as images of Sirius washed over his eyes. He had no one to look up to; Sirius had been the father Harry never had. As this thought registered in his mind, Harry had to bite his lip and squeeze his eyes shut in order not to scream in frustration.

Suddenly, from far away to his left, Harry heard yelling. He figured the Order was looking for him, but he didn't care. If they never found him, he would actually be glad. The building he had once called close to home was the reason he was here, sitting out in the rain. Grimmauld Place brought back too many memories of Sirius, and finally, after spending two weeks cooped up in the grim house, Harry had escaped secretly, hoping no one would notice. Sure enough, no one had, until now.

The voices drew nearer and Harry grew scared that they might see him. He stood up and started jogging in the direction he'd originally been going. Sobs and tears were still hanging around him, his breathing unusually sharp and laboured. He had to swipe his glasses repeatedly with his fingers in order to see two feet in front of him, the rain was falling so hard, causing him to stumble. Eventually he stopped to figure out where he was. He looked left and right several times before realizing he had no idea what any of these buildings were…

He was lost.

Exhausted and defeated, Harry fell to the ground on his knees and cried towards his hands on the concrete until he could hear footsteps running toward him. This time he didn't care; his vision was becoming foggy, and his mind dizzy, and not because of the rain. Suddenly his vision went black, and he fell onto his side.

* * *

He could hear faint voices beside him, but was unable to open his eyes to see who it was. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, his eyelids opened halfway and he took in his new surroundings. The walls were familiarly dark, with an empty picture frame hanging on the other side of the room. It felt like he was lying on a hard mattress, and sure enough, when he looked down there he was, on his own bed.

"Oh Harry, you're awake!" exclaimed a girl. She immediately gave him a huge bear hug. Alarmed, he stiffened, but then realized it was only Hermione.

"Er…yeah…" he mumbled back to her after she got off him. Harry looked up and saw two more familiar faces gathered around him.

"Hello, Harry," Ron greeted hesitantly. Remus Lupin nodded as a welcome.

Harry felt strange; relieved to be in a dry area, but also angry. He was with these people, in this house, again. His jaw tightened, but he swallowed, not sure if he could even form words well enough to properly describe what he wanted to say.

"How are you feeling?" asked Remus with concern, and as a reply Harry only shrugged, looking up at the ceiling.

The older man sighed, and said, "Harry, we want to know why you ran away."

Again, Harry kept silent. He wanted to say that he had only gone for a walk, but couldn't work through the tightness in his throat.

"Harry, answer me," Remus stated sternly.

Harry stared at him coldly and sat up, not letting his gaze leave Remus's. Slowly, he drew upon his anger to help him speak.

"Do you want to know why I left?" he said quietly. In the corner of his eye, he saw Ron place a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "Do you want to know why I'm like this?"

"Harry," Hermione whispered.

Remus was about to say something, but Harry cut him off. "Did any of you even hear me when I told you I've been having strange dreams? All you seem interested in doing is telling me it's all right to _move on_."

"That's not true, mate!" Ron said. "Of course we listen! We figured you were having those dreams about You Know Who again…"

"I…I have," Harry said. "But those aren't what I'm talking about."

"What have the dreams been about, Harry?" Hermione whispered.

Harry hesitated before muttering his answer, looking away. "Death...suicide."

Hermione clapped her hands over her mouth and both Ron and Remus drew sharp intakes of breath, but Harry ignored them. Without realizing it, he continued on, confessing to his bed sheets.

"Sometimes, I feel like I just want to hurt myself, just to get rid of the pain inside. At night I see Sirius falling through the veil, but this time I push him in and then I follow him through it, and I'm struggling to drag Cedric in with me – he's screaming, and whimpering in pain, he wants the misery to end, he wants to finally die, after all of these years of waiting to be let go. And as I fall I see the faces of my parents and friends and everyone in the Wizarding world yelling at me, saying it's my fault that Cedric and Sirius died. I killed them. Sirius always thanks me when he sees I came in after him, says he was scared he would have to die alone."

He was crying again. He lifted his head and blinked several times, trying to clear his vision, and noticed that Hermione's cheeks were wet as well. Ron stood silent and pale, and looked like he was about to place a hand on Harry's shoulder, but decided against it. Harry had forgotten they were in the room with him, and suddenly felt absolutely ashamed of himself. He caught Remus' tired gaze for a second before he realized he needed to leave again.

He bolted out of bed, surprising the others in his room, and ran out the door. Snapping out of their senses, they yelled after him and followed him out of the house. He turned sharply left, frantic to lose them, running in the opposite way he had gone earlier. The rain was pounding on the sidewalk almost as loudly as his footsteps, creating tiny rivers that flowed in the cracks. He quickly established enough distance between himself and Ron, Hermione and Remus so that they wouldn't be able to see him through the weather's haze.

As he ran, Harry found his anger draining into both fear and something else new yet recognizable, and it fueled him on. Maybe if he kept on going, all the memories, all the twisting pain would be left behind in the world he once knew, never to be looked upon by his eyes ever again...

Eventually, though, he had to stop; he was having difficulty breathing, and he had started coughing uncontrollably. He knelt down on his knees, covering his mouth with his right hand, and tried to stop the coughing, but it was no use. He couldn't remember ever having been so out of breath.

He leaned forward, resting his forehead on the wet ground. Although his coughing was under more control now, he was still wheezing, and he didn't think his legs could hold him up anymore.

An outcrop of trees surrounded him. He had run into the park, which was abandoned at this time in this weather. He could barely feel the rain anymore, sheltered under the treetops, and it was darker in here under the thick leaves that blotted out the distant streetlights and moon.

His breathing slowed down as he listened to the rainfall patter against the leaves and as the moisture in the ground seeped between his fingers. His eyes closed on their own accord.

But even as his lungs calmed down, the rest of his body continued to spin. He had a headache. He felt sick to his stomach; his skin was crawling from having to keep his person together. It wanted nothing to do with him anymore, it wanted someone worth its strength. His headache was deep within his skull and it was jarring his thoughts. He realized that he could not outrun the terrible world surrounding him, because it was also within himself.

He opened his eyes again and spied an empty bottle lying beneath one of the trees, beside some cigarettes and small clear plastic bags.

Slowly crawling forward, feeling as though his joints and bones were ancient and caked with rust, he picked up the bottle and knocked it against the tree. He held one of the shards gingerly between his fingers. They had been trembling before, but once he had possession of that shard, his muscles stilled. The fear that had been nestled inside of him for so long, plaguing his every thought and movement, finally vanished.

He honestly felt there was nowhere else for him to go. He was sure they wouldn't miss him; how could anyone love him if he so deeply hated himself, as everyone should? He was a mistake forced upon the world, doing nothing but harm; shouldn't have been there in the first place. The prophecy had fueled his fear; it was a mountain he would never be able to climb. Tonight, he didn't care about it anymore. He didn't care about _himself_ anymore.

He wiped his face on his sleeve.

* * *

He had propped himself against one of the trees before slitting his wrists, and after several moments he closed his eyes.

There was silence, and in it he dreamed of Sirius, Cedric, and his parents. With each second that he sat before their ghosts, the previous one vanished from his memory. He didn't know if any of them spoke. It was a string of flashes, an endless Polaroid of their faces as they looked upon him, as he stared back at them through his closed eyelids.

They terrified him. The fear that suddenly gripped him was unnatural, had never been felt before. Something clawed its way up through him, pushing his conscience around frantically until he snapped his eyes open and yelled at the spaces in the air where their faces should have been.

The fear made him hold his arms close to his chest. It made him back up as far as he could into the tree, unable to muffle the sharp keening in his throat as his head tilted to the side in weakness. Their faces were gone, he didn't know if he had ever even seen them, but they were inside his head, ghosts who were making his heart beat faster than it should at this point. He would have grabbed his wand if there were any sensations left in his fingers.

He began mumbling to himself, over and over, willing life back into his body, wishing with all of his remaining strength to take back the life he had bled onto the ground and please return it to his arms, his legs, his chest, his soul, because he needed it.

They must have been running like they never had before. They must have used a spell to find him. The ghosts must have scared them, too. They found him.

There they were and they found him when he was crying, hunched into himself, as he tried to stay alive.

He stared at them, each in turn. Hermione and Ron each grabbed one of his hands, and Remus closed the wounds on both his wrists. He held Harry's face and spoke to him. Harry nodded back to him.

They never let go as they helped him get back home, and as he was healed. They never let go, and they helped him, never wavering.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** If you read the original story, and are taking the time to reread it now, you will notice some big changes…like the fact that Harry is alive at the end, now. I like this version much, much more!


End file.
